2nd BaltMet Promo Policy Roundtable to be held in Tallinn

The second BaltMet Promo Policy Roundtable will take place on 14 October, back-to-back with the First Annual Forum of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region.

Aim, Themes and Programme of the Roundtable

The aim of the Policy Roundtable is to facilitate a policy dialogue on issues related to the promotion and branding of, and identity-building in, the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) and its countries, regions and cities. The overall objective is to identify complementarities, create synergies and promote a closer collaboration between the different actors and efforts promoting the region.

The Policy Roundtable will also serve the purpose of coordinating those efforts of the EU Strategy for the BSR that are relevant for reaching the ambitions set out in the horizontal priority “regional identity building” in the EU Strategy for the BSR.

Furthermore, the Policy Roundtable, functions as a link between the BaltMet Promo project and other relevant actors, projects and efforts in the region. It is a channel through which the results of the project can be made known to a wider audience, on the one hand, and the results of the discussions at the Policy Roundtable can bring valuable input to the project, on the other hand.

All in all there will be four roundtables in the course of the two-year BaltMet Promo project. The first one was held in Vilnius in June 2010, back-to-back with the Baltic Development Forum Summit. The discussions in this policy roundtable were concentrated on the BaltMet Promo project’s purpose and work-mode, as it was held in connection with the official Kick-off of the project. The third Roundtable is scheduled to take place in March or April next year, and the last one in October next year, in connection with the 2011 BDF Summit in Poland.

The overall themes of the second roundtable are:

how we can build a brand for the Baltic Sea Region and

how we can attract smart and green investments to the region and its countries.

During the Policy Roundtable the participants will among other things get a chance to listen to interesting food-for-thought presentations, discuss the future direction for branding and making the Baltic Sea Region attractive to tourists, talents and investors, and exchange experiences and ideas among executives from national investment and tourism promotion agencies, ministries, cultural institutions, city and region governments, as well as pan-Baltic organisations and EU projects in the region’s 10 countries.

Hans Brask from BDF and Matti Olinkari from City of Helsinki will talk about the role of the BaltMet Promo and the Roundtable against the background of the EU Strategy for the region, Christer Asplund, PlaceInvest AB, Karin Nygård Skalman, VINNOVA and Claus Hviid Christensen, LORC will provide though-for-thought presentations, and the report Place Branding and Place Promotion Efforts in the Baltic Sea Region will be presented by BDF. The policy roundtable will be moderated by Verner Kristiansen.

Place Branding and Place Promotion Report

The final version of the report “Place branding and place promotion efforts in the Baltic Sea Region – a situation analysis” will be presented at the said policy roundtable. Produced by BDF as a part of our engagement in the BaltMet Promo project, the purpose of the report is to map existing organisations, networks, projects and activities that are geared towards marketing the Baltic Sea Region, or considerable parts of it. The overall objective is to promote synergy and coordination between different initiatives and organisations and to facilitate a wider discussion on the international branding and attractiveness of the Baltic Sea Region. It also puts forward a number of recommendations for the future marketing of the region.

Download the report. Hard copies will be available at the Annual Forum for the EU Strategy in Tallinn, or can be ordered by contacting BDF directly.

Contact

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Top of Digital Europe

Top of Digital Europe is an independent, non-profit think tank that facilitates cross-border dialogue and public-private initiatives to strengthen the digital economy in the Baltic Sea Region. Top of Digital Europe is a joint initiative of Baltic Development Forum (BDF) and Microsoft.